Seaman: UN-Tied Nations: The United Nations, Peacekeeping and Global Governance

Kate Seaman (Univ. of Bath - Politics) has published UN-Tied Nations: The United Nations, Peacekeeping and Global Governance (Ashgate 2014). Here's the abstract:

With the recent developments in Syria the United Nations is once again making headlines. The failure to reach an agreement on a Security Council resolution demonstrates the continued problems in forging a coherent international response to crisis situations. This lack of coherence continues despite recognition of the need for more cooperation to solve the growing list of global problems. With the relative success of global governance initiatives in relation to the environment, health issues, and economic problems, the focus has increasingly shifted to the problems of international security.

This timely and important book represents a response to that shift and the implications this has for the wider international system. Using a number of relevant case studies (including the UN interventions in Bosnia, Somalia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and East Timor) it examines the securitisation of global governance through the prism of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and demonstrates that the development of both global governance and global security governance have transformed the environment in which international organisations, such as the United Nations, are operating. Moreover this book brings together a number of the key academic debates surrounding both global security governance and peacekeeping. It combines an examination of the power relations of global security governance, with the changing nature of peacekeeping operations. By bringing the two areas together the book for the first time bridges existing literatures and debates, from theoretical discussions of global governance, to practical examinations of peacekeeping operations.

Mikulaschek: Minor Powers’ Influence in International Organizations

Christoph Mikulaschek (Princeton Univ.) has posted Minor powers’ influence in international organizations: Empirical evidence exploiting the natural experiment of African representation on the UN Security Council. Here's the abstract:

To what extent is the work of international organizations shaped by their most powerful members? Can minor powers influence the decisions taken by the institutions? This paper contributes to answering these questions by systematically testing the proposition that minor powers have an impact on the substantive work of the United Nations Security Council. Recent studies on the Security Council find that its most powerful members provide aid and loans to other Council members in an effort to buy their votes. This literature leaves open the question whether minor powers trade away their entire influence in exchange for side payments or whether they also impact on the Council’s substantive work. This paper relies on a novel approach to investigate this question. It exploits exogenous variation in Africa’s participation in the work of the Security Council to estimate the influence of African states on the outcome of decision- making processes inside the Council. Using a design-based approach and permutation tests for causal inference, the study finds that African states have a substantial impact on the Council’s substantive response to civil wars in Africa between 1990 and 2013. During years when an African region is represented on the Security Council, the UN deploys 938 more blue helmets and allocates larger peacekeeping budgets to civil-war countries in the region than during years when no state in that region is a member of the Council, on average. The finding that minor powers exert significant influence on the decisions of one of the most important international institutions is consistent with the argument that great powers display strategic constraint by sharing influence on international organizations with weaker powers.

Tourme Jouannet: A Short Introduction to International Law

Emmanuelle Tourme Jouannet (Sciences Po - Law) has published A Short Introduction to International Law (Cambridge Univ. Press 2014). Here's the abstract:

In our globalised world the sources and actors of international law are many and its growth prolific and disorderly. International law governs the actions of states on matters as long-established as diplomatic immunity or as recent as the War on Terror, and it now impacts upon the lives of ordinary citizens in areas as diverse as banking and investment, public health and the protection of the environment. In this accessible introduction Emmanuelle Tourme Jouannet explains the latest developments in international law in the light of its history and culture, presenting it as an instrument both for dominance and for change that adjusts and balances the three pillars of the United Nations Charter: the prohibition of the use of force; economic, social and sustainable development; and human rights.

Conference: Italy's Diplomatic and Parliamentary Practice in International Law

On November 27, 2014, the blog Italy's Diplomatic and Parliamentary Practice in International Law will host a conference at the School of International Studies of the University of Trento. The program is here. Topics include: "Reflections on Transparency and the Rule of Law in State Practice"; "Key Issues of the Italian Foreign Policy and Practice in International Law"; and "Practice and the Formation of Customary International Law."

New Issue: Europa Ethnica

The latest issue of Europa Ethnica (2014, nos. 3/4). Contents include:

• Indigene Völker und Vereinte Nationen
• Asbjørn Eide, United Nations standard-setting regarding rights of minorities and indigenous peoples
• Dan Kuwali & Gudmundur Alfredsson, The Responsibility to Protect Minorities: The Question of Protection by Kin-States
• Alexandra Xanthaki, Indigenous rights at the United Nations: Their impact on international human rights standards
• Ulrike Haider-Quercia, Minderheitenschutz und Gleichheitsgebot im Wahlrecht
• Mark Brüggemann, Zwischen Anlehnung an Russland und Eigenständigkeit: Zur Sprachpolitik in Belarus’

Strong: Use and Perception of International Commercial Mediation and Conciliation

S.I. Strong (Univ. of Missouri - Law) has posted Use and Perception of International Commercial Mediation and Conciliation: A Preliminary Report on Issues Relating to the Proposed UNCITRAL Convention on International Commercial Mediation and Conciliation. Here's the abstract:

This report provides preliminary findings from the first-ever large-scale international survey regarding the use and perception of international commercial mediation and conciliation in the international legal and business communities. This information was gathered to assist the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and UNCITRAL Working Group II (Arbitration and Conciliation) as they consider a proposal from the Government of the United States regarding a possible convention in this area of law. The U.S. proposal will be considered in depth at the Working Group II meeting in February 2015, with a report from the Working Group due to the Commission in September 2015.

The project was constructed with two goals in mind. First, the study attempted to discover and describe current behaviors and attitudes relating to international commercial mediation and conciliation so as to set a benchmark for further analysis in this field. Second, the research attempted to determine whether the legal and business communities thought an international instrument in this area of law would be useful and if so, what shape they believed that document should take.

The study collected detailed data on 34 different questions from 221 respondents from all over the world. Survey participants included private practitioners, neutrals, in-house counsel, government lawyers, academics and judges with expertise in both domestic and international proceedings. The results described in this preliminary report will eventually be published in an article that will not only present an expanded final analysis of the underlying data but will also feature several normative proposals regarding the shape of any future international action in this area of law. However, this preliminary report is being offered early so as to provide participants in the UNCITRAL discussion with empirical data concerning the current state of international commercial mediation and conciliation as well as the international business and legal communities' views about the future of the procedure.

New Issue: Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law

The latest issue of the Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (Vol. 23, no. 3, November 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Special Issue: Trade and the Environment at WTO+20
• Aaron Cosbey & Petros C. Mavroidis, Heavy Fuel: Trade and Environment in the GATT/WTO Case Law
• Margaret A. Young, Trade Measures to Address Environmental Concerns in Faraway Places: Jurisdictional Issues
• Gabrielle Marceau, A Comment on the Appellate Body Report in EC-Seal Products in the Context of the Trade and Environment Debate
• Laura Manson & Tracey Epps, Water Footprint Labelling and WTO Rules
• Original Articles
• Kati Kulovesi, International Trade Disputes on Renewable Energy: Testing Ground for the Mutual Supportiveness of WTO Law and Climate Change Law
• Marjan Peeters & Sandra Nóbrega, Climate Change-related Aarhus Conflicts: How Successful are Procedural Rights in EU Climate Law?
• Jeffrey McGee & Joseph Wenta, Technology Transfer Institutions in Global Climate Governance: The Tension between Equity Principles and Market Allocation

Roman: La Convention pour l'élimination des discriminations à l'égard des femmes

Diane Roman (Université François-Rabelais de Tours - Law) has published La Convention pour l'élimination des discriminations à l'égard des femmes (Pedone 2014). Here's the abstract:

La Convention sur l'élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination à l'égard des femmes de 1979 est paradoxalement un des traités internationaux parmi les plus ratifiés et peut-être un des plus méconnus. Ses stipulations couvrent pourtant de nombreux pans de la vie des femmes : santé et contrôle des naissances ; famille et état civil, travail et égalité professionnelle, éducation et participation politique... Plus encore, en 25 ans, la CEDEF a fait l'objet d'une interprétation dynamique, qui intègre désormais la lutte contre les violences à l'égard des femmes et la nécessité de combattre les stéréotypes de genre. Parité, égalité salariale, statut personnel, droits reproductifs ou prostitution: les sujets abordés par la convention sont d'une actualité certaine. Cet ouvrage, le premier en langue française, retrace l'histoire de la CEDEF et analyse le contenu et la portée de cette convention, outil indispensable pour atteindre l'égalité entre les femmes et les hommes, à la fois sur la scène internationale et en droit interne.

Hamilton: The ICC's Exit Problem

Rebecca J. Hamilton (Columbia Univ. - Law) has posted The ICC's Exit Problem (New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was never meant to supplant the domestic prosecution of international crimes. And yet the Court is now entering its second decade of operations in four African nations, with no plan for exit in sight. This Article identifies the looming need for the ICC to consider when and how to exit situations in which it is currently active. In addition to the normative concern that a failure to start planning for exit undercuts the Court’s placement within a system of complementarity, the need to consider exit is also driven by a financial imperative. The Court’s caseload is expanding at a radically faster rate than its budget, and there has already been a detrimental impact on the quality of the Court’s work. However consideration of exit reveals an immediate problem: While the Court’s constitutive document, the Rome Statute, provides much guidance on when the Court may enter a new situation, it offers no explicit guidance on exit whatsoever. This Article fills that lacuna, proposing a novel framework to guide exit decision-making that draws on both statutory and policy prescriptions, as well as insights from analogous international institutions. This Article’s focus on exit represents a new direction within the literature on the ICC which, for the first decade of the Court’s existence has focused almost exclusively on issues related to the entry of the Court into new situations. Yet two of the dimensions involved in exit decision-making, prosecutorial discretion and complementarity, are issues that the ICC has been grappling with since its inception. Consideration of exit provides a new opportunity to assess and extend our understanding of issues.

Jacobs: The Frog that Wanted to Be an Ox: The ICC’s Approach to Immunities and Cooperation

Dov Jacobs (Leiden Univ. - Law) has posted The Frog that Wanted to Be an Ox: The ICC’s Approach to Immunities and Cooperation (in The Law and Practice of the International Criminal Court, C. Stahn ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This Chapter addresses the question of the obligations of States to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in relation to the execution of arrest warrants. More particularly, the chapter discusses the difficult case, that of the obligation of States to cooperate in relation to arrest warrants issued against nationals of non-State parties who might be said to benefit from diplomatic immunity, as recognised by Article 98 of the Rome Statute.

The chapter takes issue with the current approach adopted by International Criminal Law practice as relying unconvincingly either on customary international law or the powers of the United Nations Security Council, and tries to untangle two very distinct questions which are often confused: 1) whether the ICC can exercise jurisdiction against nationals of non-State parties that might benefit from immunities and 2) whether State parties are under an obligation to arrest and surrender them to the Court.

Ultimately, the chapter argues that the ICC has lost sight of its jurisdictional limitations when trying to claim that immunities are generally irrelevant, therefore resembling the Frog that wanted to be an ox, which exploded prematurely before seeing if it had succeeded.

New Volume: Anuario Iberoamericano de Derecho Internacional Penal

The latest volume of the Anuario Iberoamericano de Derecho Internacional Penal (Vol. 2, 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Sección de Investigación
• Carlos Villán Durán, El derecho humano a la paz
• Josep Tamarit Sumalla, Memoria histórica y justicia transicional en España: el tiempo como actor de la justicia penal
• Javier Chinchón Álvarez, Lydia Vicente Márquez, & Alicia Moreno Pérez, La posición del Tribunal Supremo respecto a la aplicación del derecho internacional a los crímenes del pasado en España: Un análisis jurídico tras los informes del Grupo de Trabajo sobre Desapariciones Forzadas, el Comité contra la Desaparición Forzada y el Relator Especial sobre Justicia Transicional de las Naciones Unidas
• Sección de Ensayos de Investigación
• Leandro Alberto Dias, Violencia sexual contra niños y niñas menores de quince años en el caso Lubanga: análisis crítico y una propuesta de solución
• Giovanna María Frisso, El estatus de víctima en el tribunal penal internacional: la importancia de una perspectiva comunicativa
• Sección de Reseñas Jurisprudenciales
• María Paula López Velásquez, Situación en la República de Costa de Marfil, caso de la Fiscalía c . Laurent Gbagbo, decisión de la Sala de Cuestiones Preliminares I sobre la audiencia de confirmación de cargos en relación con artículo 61(7)(c)(i) del Estatuto de Roma
• María Paula López Velásquez, Caso de la Fiscalia c . Hassan Habib Merhi, Sala de Primera Instancia, decisión para llevar a cabo el juicio In Absentia, 20 de diciembre de 2013

Call for Submissions: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The Melbourne Journal of International Law has issued a call for submissions for the first issue of its sixteenth volume. Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS

MELBOURNE JOURNAL of INTERNATIONAL LAW

The Editors of the Melbourne Journal of International Law (‘MJIL’) invite submissions on areas of interest in international law for the first issue of their 16th volume. MJIL will also consider submissions that do not necessarily fall neatly into the traditional public/private international law categories, including transnational law issues, domestic court interpretations of international law and submissions that adopt a comparative law approach to analyse international law. Issue 16(1) will be published in June 2015.

MJIL, Australia’s premier generalist international law journal, is a peer-reviewed academic journal run through the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne. MJIL’s objective is to facilitate scholarly research and critical discussion of private and public international law issues.

SUBMISSIONS:

MJIL publishes articles, commentaries, case notes and book reviews. Articles for 16(1) should be in the vicinity of 10,000 to 15,000 words in length and be an original and detailed contribution to international and/or transnational law scholarship. Commentaries should explore recent developments in a specific field and their practical applications, and should be between 5,000 and 8,000 words in length. For more details, please visit our website.

SUBMISSION PROCESS:

All articles, case notes, commentaries and review essays published in MJIL are subjected to a double-blind refereeing process, involving at least two specialists in the field. Once accepted for publication, submissions will then be edited for compliance with the Australian Guide to Legal Citation. Authors have an opportunity to review the final version of the piece prior to publication. Our publication policy can be accessed here.

All submissions should be sent to law-mjil@unimelb.edu.au in Word format, together with a signed publication policy.

The submission deadline for 16(1) is 31 January 2015.

New Issue: Journal of World Trade

The latest issue of the Journal of World Trade (Vol. 48, no. 6, December 2014) is out. Contents include:

• Shintaro Hamanaka, Finding Non-notified Trade Agreements to the WTO: Preliminary Investigation in Asia-Pacific
• Lucian Cernat & Zornitsa Kutlina-Dimitrova, Thinking in a Box: A ‘Mode 5’ Approach to Service Trade
• Ming Du, When China’s National Champions Go Global: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself?
• Andrew Grainger, The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement: Consulting the Private Sector
• Shin-yi Peng, Regulating New Services through Litigation? Electronic Commerce as a Case Study on the Evaluation of ‘Judicial Activism’ in the WTO
• Carlo Maria Cantore, ‘Shelter from the Storm’: Exploring the Scope of Application and Legal Function of the GATS Prudential Carve-Out
• Yanning Yu, Trade Remedies: China in the BRICS
• Joseph Michael Finger, The WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement: Form without Substance Again?

de Nanteuil: Droit international de l'investissement

Arnaud de Nanteuil (Université du Maine - Law) has published Droit international de l'investissement (Pedone 2014). Here's the abstract:

Le droit international de l'investissement est sans doute aujourd'hui l'une des branches les plus dynamiques du droit international. Inscrit dans le prolongement historique des principes coutumiers de protection des étrangers, il s'est largement épanoui par le recours aux techniques de l'arbitrage et offre désormais une garantie importante aux investisseurs désireux de développer une activité à l'étranger, quelle qu'en soit la nature (construction, extraction, mise en place de réseaux de distribution d'eau ou d'électricité, mais aussi assurance, tourisme, etc.). Fort d'une jurisprudence en constante expansion développée par des tribunaux arbitraux susceptibles d'être directement saisis par les opérateurs privés, il est porteur d'un enjeu considérable pour l'avenir puisque la protection de l'investissement est réputée participer au développement économique mondial. Sans doute cet enjeu n'est-il d'ailleurs pas seulement d'ordre économique, puisque seul un système normatif suffisamment protecteur et respectueux des intérêts des investisseurs comme des Etats permet d'envisager le développement d'activités « durables » mêlant performances économiques et considérations écologiques. Ce manuel, le premier en langue française en raison de la nouveauté relative de cette discipline, entend présenter le droit international de l'investissement de manière globale et synthétique. Abordant la question des sources (internes et internationales), des acteurs (l'investisseur et l'État), du contentieux arbitral (dans ses aspects institutionnels et procéduraux) et des règles substantielles de protection (traitement juste et équitable, protection contre l'expropriation, etc.), il se veut simple et accessible. Relativement bref pour demeurer abordable, ce livre s'adresse donc en priorité aux étudiants et jeunes chercheurs que la matière serait susceptible d'intéresser, mais aussi aux praticiens - de plus en plus nombreux - confrontés à la discipline dans le cadre de leur activité.

New Issue: Revue belge de droit international

The latest issue of the Revue belge de droit international (Vol. 46, no. 2, 2013) is out. Contents include:

• Dossier spécial : The International Rule of Law: European and Asian perspectives
• J. Wouters & M. Burnay, Introduction — The International Rule of Law: European and Asian Perspectives
• N. Hachez, What Elements of the Rule of Law can be put to use at International Level?
• J. Hivonnet, The EU and the Promotion of Rule of Law in Postconflict Situations: the Case of Kosovo
• M. Burnay & J. Wouters, China in the UN Security Council: What are the Implications for the International Rule of Law?
• D. Vanoverbeke, Exporting the Rule of Law in East Asia: Japan’s Experiences from the 1990s to Present
• R. Sen, The Indian Perspective on the International Rule of Law: Through the Lens of International Agreements on Free Trade
• Dossier spécial : Les obligations internationales de l’Union européenne et de ses États membres concernant les relations économiques avec les colonies israéliennes
• J. Dugard, Avant-propos
• F. Dubuisson, Les obligations internationales de l’Union européenne et de ses États membres concernant les relations économiques avec les colonies israéliennes
• I. Moulter, Les implications des obligations de non-reconnaissance et de non-assistance au maintien de la situation illicite issue de la politique de colonisation d’Israël pour les États tiers
• R. Kolb, Commentaires iconoclastes sur l’obligation de faire respecter le droit international humanitaire selon l’article 1 commun des Conventions de Genève de 1949
• Études
• A. Papaux & E. Wyler, Le droit international public libéré de ses sources formelles : nouveau regard sur l’article 38 du statut de la Cour internationale de justice
• G. Albine, La doctrine de l’étranger proche et les conflits gelés
• L. Weyers, La chasse à la baleine dans l’Antarctique : une application du principe de l’exercice raisonnable des compétences discrétionnaires de l’État

Koskenniemi: Vitoria and Us: Thoughts on Critical Histories of International Law

Martti Koskenniemi (Univ. of Helsinki - Law) has published Vitoria and Us: Thoughts on Critical Histories of International Law (Rechtsgeschichte, no. 22, 2014). Here's the abstract:

How to write (international) legal histories that would be true to their protagonists while simultaneously relevant to present audiences? Most of us would also want to write "critically - that is to say, at least by aiming to avoid Eurocentrism, hagiography and commitment to an altogether old-fashioned view of international law as an instrument of progress. hence we write today out histories "in context". But this cannot be all. Framing the relevant "context" is only possible by drawing upon more or less conscious jurisprudential and political preferences. Should attention be focused on academic debates, military power, class structure or assumptions about hte longue durée? Such choices determine for us what we think of as relevant "contexts", and engage us as participants in large conversations about law and power that are not only about once "was" but also what there will be in the future.

Singh & Mayer: Critical International Law: Postrealism, Postcolonialism, and Transnationalism

Prabhakar Singh (National Univ. of Singapore - Law) & Benoît Mayer (National Univ. of Singapore - Law) have published Critical International Law: Postrealism, Postcolonialism, and Transnationalism (Oxford Univ. Press 2014). Contents include:

• Simon Chesterman, Foreword
• Prabhakar Singh & Benoît Mayer, Thinking International Law Critically: One Attitude, Three Perspectives
• Hengameh Saberi, Descendants of Realism? Policy-oriented International Lawyers as Guardians of Democracy
• John R. Morss, Riddles of the Sands: Time, Power, and Legitimacy in International Law
• Rossana Deplano, The Welfarist Approach to International Law: An Appraisal
• Prabhakar Singh, Revisiting the Role of the International Courts and Tribunals?
• Antony Anghie, Towards a Post-colonial International Law
• José-Manuel Barreto, A Universal History of Infamy: Human Rights, Eurocentrism, and Modernity as Crisis
• Mark Toufayan, 'Suffering' the Paradox of Rights? Critical Subaltern Historiography and the Genealogy of Empathy
• Benoît Mayer, The 'Magic Circle' of Rights Holders: Human Rights' Outsiders
• Frédéric Mégret, The Rise and Fall of 'International Man'
• Owen McIntyre, The Human Right to Water as a 'Creature' of Global Administrative Law
• Rene Urueña, Of Precedents and Ideology: Law-making by Investment Arbitration Tribunals
• Prabhakar Singh & Sonja Kübler, Constitutionalism and Pluralism: Two Ways of Looking at Internationalism
• Sébastien Jodoin & Katherine Lofts, What's Critical about Critical International Law? Reflections on the Emancipatory Potential of International Legal Scholarship

Trachtman: The Obsolescence of Customary International Law

Joel P. Trachtman (Tufts Univ. - Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) has posted The Obsolescence of Customary International Law. Here's the abstract:

At a time when the world needs more, and more complex, international legal rules and institutions to address major cooperation problems, customary international law (“CIL”) has several important limitations: (i) it cannot be made in a coordinated manner in advance of events, (ii) it cannot be made with sufficient detail, (iii) it cannot be made with sufficiently heterogeneous reciprocity between states, (iv) it cannot be made with specifically-designed organizational support, (v) it is generally not subject to national parliamentary control, (vi) it purports to bind states that did not consent but failed to object to its formation, and (vii) it provides excessive space for auto-interpretation by states, or for sometimes insufficiently disciplined interpretation by judges.

Treaty, and legislation produced by international organization voting, can perform better on all of these dimensions. Today, the vast majority of rules of CIL are codified: of 300 identified rules of CIL, only 13 have not been codified either in treaties or in International Law Commission instruments. To a remarkable extent, due to the growth of treaty law incorporating the same norms, if CIL were abolished today, most of the international legal system would remain intact. Although I cannot prove that the rise of treaty rules has resulted from the factors discussed above, those factors are a good set of reasons why states might have determined to produce treaties that include, but are not limited to, the rules that exist in CIL.

Broude: A Crafty Madness Kept Aloof: Anti-Dumping as Faulted Global Governance

Tomer Broude (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem - Law) has posted A Crafty Madness Kept Aloof: Anti-Dumping as Faulted Global Governance (in Grey Zones of Global Governance and Trade: Anti-Dumping, Subsidies, Human Rights and Policy Spaces, Daniel Drache & Les Jacobs eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

The international regulation of anti-dumping is truly a ‘grey zone’ in the sense that it sanctions legalized yet highly discretionary trade protectionism. However, to portray anti-dumping laws and practices as a grey zone of governance is something entirely different, for that might imply that anti-dumping has economic or other public policy justifications that transcend merely politicized responsiveness to particular international trade interests. Anti-dumping reduces welfare, both locally and globally. Anti-dumping measures do not, and should not, play an active role in public policy strategies relating to issues such as labor standards, as elaborated in this article. Moreover, North-South shifts in the global political economy, evolving trends in international services trade and international investment, and the emergence of global value chains, may partly explain the proliferation of anti-dumping and the perpetuation of the GATT/WTO’s multilateral anti-dumping regime, but they cannot justify them. If anti-dumping policy is a form of global governance, it is a deeply faulted one.

Knox: Human Rights Principles and Climate Change

John H. Knox (Wake Forest Univ. - Law) has posted Human Rights Principles and Climate (in Oxford Handbook of International Climate Change Law, Cinnamon Carlarne, Kevin R. Gray, & Richard Tarasofsky eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter examines whether climate change interferes with the enjoyment of human rights recognized in international law and, if so, whether and how human rights law requires States to protect human rights from such interference. Although the application of human rights law to climate change is still in its infancy, the contours of the relationship are becoming clearer. Human rights bodies are developing an environmental jurisprudence that may be brought to bear on climate change.

Jalloh: The Trial of President Charles Taylor

Charles Chernor Jalloh (Florida International Univ. - Law) has posted The Trial of President Charles Taylor (in Cambridge Companion to International Criminal Law, William A. Schabas ed., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This chapter discusses a rare successful prosecution of a head of state by a modern international criminal court. The case involved former Liberian president Charles Taylor. Taylor, who was charged and tried by the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (“SCSL”), was convicted in April 2013 for planning and aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious international humanitarian law violations. He was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment. The SCSL Appeals Chamber upheld the historic conviction and sentence in September 2013. Taylor is currently serving his sentence in Britain.

This paper from an insider, who worked as an interim court-appointed defense attorney during the opening of the trial in The Hague in June 2007, is the first to evaluate this significant international case since it concluded. The author exposes the numerous controversies that dogged the trial of Liberia’s former president - from the questions that arose about how best to sequence peace and justice following the prosecution’s initial unveiling of his judicially-sealed indictment through to concerns about whether he should be tried in the heart of Europe, as opposed to Africa, to the completion of appeals.

He concludes that the trial of President Taylor is significant for the SCSL because he was the most high profile and thus most elusive suspect to be indicted by the court. Although it may be too early to draw definitive conclusions, a key lesson that we can derive for international criminal justice is that the indictment of a sitting president for international crimes may sometimes help loosen his grip on power, thereby enabling his subsequent prosecution.

Call for Submissions: Polish Yearbook of International Law

The Polish Yearbook of International Law has issued a call for submissions for its forthcoming volume (XXXIV). Here's the call:

Polish Yearbook of International Law (PYIL) is currently seeking articles for its next volume (XXXIV), which will be published in June 2015. Authors are invited to submit complete unpublished papers in areas connected with public and private international law, including European law. Although it is not a formal condition for acceptance, we are specifically interested in articles that address issues in international and European law relating to Central and Eastern Europe. In this context, we are particularly looking for articles that analyse different legal aspects of the current Ukrainian crisis and the new power relations that are emerging in this part of the world. Authors from the region are also strongly encouraged to submit their works.

Submissions should not exceed 15,000 words (including footnotes) but in exceptional cases we may also accept longer works. We assess manuscripts on a rolling basis and will consider requests for expedited review in case of a pending acceptance for publication from another journal.

All details about submission procedure and required formatting are available at the PYIL’s webpage.

Please send manuscripts to pyil@inp.pan.pl. The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2015.

de la Rasilla del Moral: Interdisciplinary and Critical Knowledge Creation Processes in International Human Rights

Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral (Brunel Univ. - Law) has posted Interdisciplinary and Critical Knowledge Creation Processes in International Human Rights (in Les critiques du droit international des droits de l’homme, L. Hennebel & H. Tigroudja eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

Against the background of the current difficulty and lack of incentives for engaging in a scholarship that departs from the usual parameters of recognition within a particular area or sub-discipline in international law, the first part of the chapter examines the phenomenon of hybridization of the social sciences. It also highlights the considerable intellectual and pedagogical promises of both inter-disciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity in international human rights. After introducing the notion of “deviant inter-disciplinarity” and suggesting that international human rights law should embrace its own anti-disciplinary dimension, the second part passes review to the intellectual roots and postulates of a number of schools of critical international thought and examines their background influence on the study of international human rights law today. The conclusion reviews some recent contributions to this critical “tendency in contemporary international legal thought” and reflects on the overall intellectually salutary contribution of interdisciplinary and critical-knowledge creation processes to international human rights.